Polymer Clay Beads

Well I've progressed a bit with the polymer clay.

I have successfully made several kinds of solid lavender beads ... and some nice swirly beads ... and I even got a cane to work. The beads I made from it are pug-ugly but there you go.

I tried making faux amethyst points. (My mother gave me some real ones for Christmas so I had an inspiration.) I put purple for one end then lavender then white and finished it up with translucent. Unfortunately the translucent turned rather yellow. so they are a bit challenged in the looks department. I was using Sculpey III which apparently turns yellow when you burn it.

So I got an oven thermometer to go with the toaster oven and turned the temperature down. I didn't make more points but I did try making more things with translucent. The backgrounds for the cane beads are translucent. This seemed to be a little better -- it's not yellow but it is not very translucent either.

So anyway I bought a bunch more transparent. Fimo Classic, Premo, Kato Polyclay and of course I had Sculpey III. I plan to do some controlled experimenting with this.

I also decided that I wanted my beads to look more finished. Apparently, one can tumble polymer clay with sandpaper to get it to look nicer. So I bought a toy Rock Tumbler today at Michael's with a 40% off coupon and the very last of my Christmas money. I looked for sandpaper at Lowe's but I didn't find any that was fine enough. I'll try ACE Hardware tomorrow.